


Bram’s Lullaby

by sue_dreams (raegan_1)



Category: Smallville
Genre: AU: vampire, M/M, redk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-16
Updated: 2014-11-16
Packaged: 2018-02-25 16:05:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2627786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raegan_1/pseuds/sue_dreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lex is two for two on wives who wanted him dead. His best friend is missing. His life is one long lesson on the adage about being careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bram’s Lullaby

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fruitbat00](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fruitbat00/gifts).



> I took elements from some of the more detailed prompts, particularly Lex getting hurt (by Clark) and Clark taking care of him (except they take care of each other, mostly). My use of redK is best excused by the Wikipedia article on kryptonite: “Pre-Crisis red Kryptonite was created from a "flock" of green Kryptonite which passed through a (red-hued) "strange cosmic cloud," some of which arrived on Earth. In this continuity, each piece of red Kryptonite causes a different effect on Superman when he comes into contact with it.”
> 
> Alternate Universe after/at the end of Season Two’s final episode “Exodus”, with spoilers pulled from Season Three. Lex suffers some side effects from blood loss, but given that it’s Lex, his symptoms are not necessarily medically sound and his ‘treatment’ is not advised.

Lex couldn’t, and wouldn’t, say he knew what he was getting into. But as with most things in his life, he would take responsibility for his actions. He walked into the club in his suit slacks and dress shirt, he ordered red wine from the unfortunately gothic bartender. When he’d caught sight of what he wanted on the dance floor, he’d gone for it. He’d gotten it.

Except that was the over-simplified version of the story, but Lex had lost a bit of blood and he wasn’t up to the long story recap, even as he took stock of his situation and went over how he’d arrived in this particular spot of trouble.

Smallville, Clark, a wedding being annulled after an ‘unscheduled’ stop at St. Croix the first night of the honeymoon tour, Clark missing, Lex looking for his friend while he let Lionel deal with happy smugness the details of the annulment, while Jonathon and Martha took care of each other.

He’d been excited at first, when he’d spotted his best friend on the dance floor, but it had been obvious immediately that Clark wasn’t himself. Oh, he’d recognized Lex, greeted him by name. But where his farm boy would have smiled innocently and probably followed Lex from the floor with little protest, this version of the handsome young Kent had leered and swayed his body closer to Lex, had reached out and pulled Lex in by the hips.

The music had been too loud to try reasoning with Clark, or at least that was the excuse Lex was going to use if anyone asked. There were too many other people to try to get into a private conversation about any of the things Lex wanted to talk about. So, he’d let Clark derail conversation with his body, let his (not-so-) innocent farm boy grind their hips together and lean in over Lex. He’d tipped his head back and put his arms around Clark’s shoulders and held on.

Then he’d gasped in shock at the slide of tongue over his neck and then again in pain when Clark’s teeth had sunk into his neck.

* * *

All it took to secure a private room was a small wad of cash and a repressive look when the club manager tried to say Lex’s name out loud. Clark had to be pushed away from Lex for them to get anywhere, but the moment they were alone, he’d crowded in close again.

“It’s not supposed to hurt,” Clark murmured, laving over the bleeding marks on Lex’s neck again. “And it’s supposed to stop bleeding.” The last was mumbled as he’d stopped trying to lick the wound closed and instead pressed his tongue against it to staunch the bleeding.

Lex card his fingers through Clark’s hair and then let his arm rest against Clark’s shoulder. “Did you believe that because that’s how it happened with other people, or have you seen too many vampire movies?”

Clark’s guilty silence wasn’t an answer. Lex chuckled softly and tugged gently at his hair in fond reprimand. Clark mumbled something, but kept pressure on Lex’s neck. Lex let his hand drop to the soft leather that stretched over Clark’s shoulders. He had to admit he had a fondness for Clark’s farm boy chic, but the leather jacket, dark jeans and shirt he wore also did things to Lex. And Lex’s libido.

“Oh, Clark,” Lex murmured, unable to help the fondness in his voice. “You’re not a normal human, why did you think you’d be a ‘normal’ vampire? And until today, I didn’t think vampires existed, so what’s normal for the bloodsucking undead?”

That was apparently something Clark had to respond to, as he pulled his mouth away from Lex’s neck and pulled back far enough to give Lex an exasperated look. “I’m not dead. I mean, I didn’t die. I just…” He looked away quickly, guilt taking over his expression in a familiar way. Lex recognized that look and he waited for whatever terrible lie Clark was going to try to give him, but Clark leaned forward instead. It was hard to tell with his neck still throbbing to the rhythm of his heart, but it felt like Clark brushed his mouth over the holes in Lex’s neck. He didn’t linger on the spot, but nosed along under Lex’s jaw.

Well, that worked. Lex would definitely rather have Clark’s mouth trying to give him a hickey than spouting lies. Except that before tonight, the last time Lex had seen Clark was before the wedding, and their relationship had been a lot more platonic than the earlier dancing and current sucking—Lex pushed at Clark with lethargic arms. “No more biting,” he warned. It came out a little weak. A lot weak. Worryingly weak.

One moment they were standing, Clark holding Lex and supporting the majority of their weight. The next moment, Lex was lying prone on a sofa with Clark hovering over him with a worried, guilty expression. This, sadly, seemed pretty normal for them. Lex would think the earlier biting, sucking, nuzzling had been a dream, but Clark still had fangs pressing his lips out of their normal shape and a smudge of Lex’s blood at the corner of his mouth.

“Maybe a vampire would explain you,” Lex mused aloud. “I’m glad you don’t sparkle in the sunlight. You’re already too dazzling.”

“Oh, shit,” Clark said. “Lex, you’ve lost too much blood. What do I do?”

“Never cuss again. Orange juice, water, cookies. Think of the refreshment table at the blood drive.” Not that Lex had donated blood, but Martha was both a consistent donor and volunteer. “But we should probably get out of here before the media is informed that I’m here.”

Clark’s frown deepened and he looked toward the interior wall of the club. For a moment, Lex thought he was glaring at the door as if daring anyone to interrupt them, but Clark’s mouth twisted in disgust. “They’re already here.”

There were a lot of questions that roused, but Lex didn’t have the energy for them. “Find us a way out, then. I’ve got blood on my favorite shirt and you shouldn’t be—can they take your picture? Do you have a reflection?”

Clark looked back at Lex and his expression lightened, brightened. “I’ve been so scared, Lex, but part of me always knew you’d be this way, and that you’d protect and help me first, then ask a million questions after.”

“And then let you suck on me some more?” Lex suggested.

Unbelievably, Clark was still capable of blushing and his cheeks flushed. Lex wondered sleepily if it was easier to blush so bright with Lex’s borrowed blood.

* * *

Lex knew the hum of the Ferrari’s engine, but the vibration was different from the passenger seat. Lex also didn’t listen to country music, but he was pretty certain that’s what was pouring softly out of the stereo system. His head hurt, a semi-familiar feeling of dehydration as if hung over. Or as if he’d suffered significant blood loss.

Clark was driving, which Lex knew already, but verified by opening his eyes and turning his head. The sky outside the car was dark, so probably on the highway to Smallville. The passenger seat was reclined. Lex couldn’t read the passing signs or the horizon, so he had no way of knowing how long they’d been driving.

“You were scared. What did you think I would do, Clark?”

The car swerved as Clark looked at him. “I didn’t realize you were awake.”

“What was the worst, Clark?” Lex probed. He thought about trying to sit up, but he probably wouldn’t get a better answer even if he was able to glare more effectively at Clark’s profile. Instead, he reached for the bottle of juice resting between his leg and the center console.

There wasn’t an immediate answer, then Clark’s voice came out rough. “Give me over to science for dissection.”

Lex thought at first it was a joke about Lex over-analyzing everything, including the accident, because Lex had certainly ‘dissected’ that to death. But Clark’s jaw was clenched and his frame was tense enough to be noticeable in the lights from the dash. “You don’t dissect vampires,” Lex said. It wasn’t an absolute denial, but Lex’s mind wasn’t at its best. He wanted to protest that he wouldn’t have, he would never have let Clark be taken and cut apart, but he really just hoped that it didn’t have to be said.

“Aliens,” Clark said roughly. Then he cleared his throat and didn’t look at Lex in a way that made it very apparent he wasn’t looking at Lex. “Aliens get dissected.”

A new song came on the radio, whinier than the last, but mutedly obnoxious as Lex tried to process that. “Alien vampires in plaid?” Though Clark wasn’t in plaid at the moment. There was no answer. Lex downed half the juice and thought about pushing for further answers, but the car wasn’t much better for serious conversations than the back room of a club, and Lex was still tired. But, “My father’s at the mansion. I don’t want to go back there.” He didn’t want Clark near his father or vice versa.

“Where’s Helen?” Clark blurted out. The car shifted again, like he’d jerked the wheel.

“Rwanda,” Lex answered, though he doubted that was true. Most likely, she was in Smallville or Metropolis or St. Croix, dealing with paperwork and Lionel’s minions. But while she would be ruined in all of Kansas by the time his father was done with her, Lex did hope that she was able to continue her more philanthropic endeavors. Overseas and far away from Lex. Away from Clark. “It’s your blood.”

“What’s my blood?” Clark asked, attentive but not understanding.

“Helen had a vial. I stole it, but gave it back.” What had Helen done with it? God, he needed to not be groggy. He had found Clark – he’d as good as made out with Clark, even though that hadn’t been part of the agenda for at least a year or three, if ever – but there were more questions than answers already and Lex didn’t feel up to dealing with them. “We need to talk to your parents.”

“No,” Clark responded. He didn’t sound angry or upset; he didn’t sound anything but flat. Lex hadn’t expected a refusal.

“Clark, they were worried—“

“Just, no,” Clark said again, softer this time. Pleading. “You don’t want to see your dad, I don’t want to see my parents.”

Lex finished the orange juice and discarded the empty bottle at his feet. “Skip the turnoff to Smallville, then.” There was no response, though the silence seemed to get a little heavier. A little guilty. Lex felt a small smile creeping over his lips. “You were never heading toward Smallville.”

Clark’s shoulders seem to rise toward his ears. “I can’t go back there. Not right now.”

“You’re abducting me in my own car,” Lex continued. Maybe Clark couldn’t heal the bite he’d given Lex, but there had to be something in his saliva, because Lex was edging toward giddiness that had nothing to do with blood loss. “How many people did you bite before me, that you thought it wouldn’t hurt?”

“Enough,” Clark answered, voice taking a turn toward petulance. “And it didn’t hurt. Most of them, they liked it.” For the first time in several minutes, Clark turned to look at Lex, and he looked like a sullen child. “It felt good and it healed for them, but not for you. They all wanted a second go.”

Lex wasn’t touching that thought with a thousand foot pole. “Is there more juice?” Lex asked, turning toward the back before he blurted out that he’d be willing to let Clark bite him again, pain or pleasure. Clark started to reach back, but Lex slapped his arm. “Both hands on the wheel, farm boy. I’ve got it.”

A new bottle of juice retrieved, Lex sat up and righted the seat so he could see the road stretching out before them. He didn’t bother looking at the signs, not now. His brain felt like it was finally coming back online and thoughts were sorting themselves out, pieces filling in a puzzle he didn’t expect. He’d thought Clark a meteor mutant, but Clark said alien. He was apparently vampiric, but Lex was surprised he hadn’t noticed that in Smallville. Though if Clark had been healing the bites of his victims for years, it was no wonder there were no signs.

“All the powered individuals in Smallville, did you bite them? Is that where their powers come from?” Lex had started to think it had something to do with the meteor rock, but the theory that Clark’s alien vampire bite-

“No!” Clark’s denial was sharp and offended. “I’m not—the biting is new. It’s—“ He held out his hand to Lex, the red stone of his ring glinting in the lights of the car Clark was passing. Lex vaguely remembered Clark had lost that ring months ago. “It’s the meteor rock, the red one. Before, it just made me feel so free. I didn’t care if I hurt anyone and I just wanted that again, to be able to forget—but it didn’t work that way this time. It did, but it didn’t, because I don’t care, but it’s not as easy.”

Now that Lex was sitting up, he could see the speedometer and could track the moment that Clark’s upset emotions started to lead to his lead foot. “Pull off up ahead, I have to use the restroom,” Lex requested.

The next exit was too soon, but Clark slammed on the brakes, throwing Lex against the seatbelt as he took the exit anyway, cutting off the car they’d just passed. They didn’t make it off the exit ramp before Clark had brought the car to an abrupt halt on the shoulder and turned off the engine. “Stop! Just stop not talking about it! You have to have questions, you always have questions and you ask about things I don’t have the answers for or things I have to lie about, so just ask!”

Lex undid his seatbelt and turned sideways as much as the limited leg room would allow. “You’ve given me more honesty tonight than at any time in our friendship, and I haven’t had to ask. I’ve been asking for months, Clark, and you’ve continually lied and denied and evaded me, tossed our friendship back in my face and basically told me your secrets were more important. So excuse me if I’ve reached the point where I’ll take what I get and bite my tongue against all the remaining questions.”

Clark stared at him and Lex expected indignation and anger and a return to the status quo, because he never got what he wanted. Instead, Clark started the car again. “Put your seatbelt on.”

Lex pointed them toward a diner that was open for breakfast at four in the morning and they ordered five kinds of pancakes and didn’t talk. Clark tried a couple times, but finally gave up when Lex told him point blank, “Just stop. I’m processing.”

Clark mumbled into his plate, “You don’t even know half of it,” which Lex purposely ignored, even though he knew it was true. Lex waited until they’d demolished most of the food and the waitress had left them both with full cups of coffee.

“How new is the biting?”

“After the wedding,” Clark answered. Most of the meal had been like eating with a business associate, a stranger with unknown motivations and private agendas, but the question seemed to have settled something in Clark, and he seemed suddenly more comfortable, if not his usual self. He should probably be more worried if he started biting people and sucking their blood just two days ago, but Lex is going to ignore that for a while, too.

“Because of the wedding?” Lex asked, not surprised when Clark shook his head. “Then because of whatever you were doing instead of being at the wedding,” Lex surmised. Clark opened his mouth, and Lex could tell that there was a lot the teen wanted to say, but he cut it off by standing up. “When do you need to… check your blood again?” he asked, mindful of the waitress closing in on their table once again. She had a check in hand, but Lex didn’t want to make pleasantries over the bill. He handed her a bill that would cover their breakfast a couple times over. “Keep the change.”

He gestured for Clark to follow, ignored the waitress’s stuttering gratitude, and headed straight for the passenger side of the car.

Clark didn’t have a definite answer for how often he got bitey. He rubbed his chest through his shirt with his right hand, left hand on the wheel to steer as they continued down the highway. “It’s been six hours, since…” he trailed off, looking sideways at Lex. “Before that, it was every couple hours between, before it would hurt.”

Lex didn’t think Clark was talking about hunger pangs. “Before what hurt?” Clark put both hands on the wheel and said nothing, the silence between them heavy again. “You wanted me to ask questions,” Lex reminded him, unable to tamp down on the flare of anger and hurt. “You demanded I ask questions, you’ve already told me you’re an alien and a vampire now, and—“

“My birth father wants me to take over the world!” Clark shouted over Lex’s diatribe. Lex subsided and Clark’s shoulders hunched forward as he seemed to sink into the leather of the driver’s seat.

“Huh,” Lex murmured. “I’d say that our fathers are a lot alike, but my father doesn’t want me to rule the world, he wants to reign over it himself. They’d probably be frenemies, though. My father likes the adage of keeping your enemies closer than friends.”

The look Clark gave Lex then was dark and unimpressed, but his shoulders unhunched. A minute later, the corner of Clark’s mouth that Lex could see twitched. “I know I don’t show it a lot, Lex, but I expect great things from you, for you to do great things. But you have this way of doing good things that I never expect.”

The insult was likely unintentional, but Lex felt the sharpness of the back-handed compliment as a piercing blow, regardless. “And what good thing have I done this time,” Lex asked dryly, aiming for a teasing tone. He wasn’t sure if he’d succeeded fully, but Clark smiled at him.

“You’re a good friend.”

“Because the idea of you competing with my father for world domination didn’t send me running?”

“Because I have thrown some really weird things at you today, things that have scared me for days and weeks and months, and you’re still my friend.”

Lex was at a loss for a moment, because that wasn’t a backhanded anything. He shifted and Clark smiled at him again, a light and familiar expression Lex was helpless against. “Well, it takes one to know one,” he finally answered.

That was apparently the wrong thing to say, as Clark’s smile vanished. “I’ve been a terrible friend. To you, to Pete, to Chloe. To Lana, even. The thing about being able to distance myself from all the guilt is that I can’t just put all the memories away in a box this time and declare myself entirely free. I think of them all the time and they matter, but nothing hurts except—“ He side-eyed Lex again. “I have a mark. From- from my birth father.”

* * *

Clark’s turn toward vampirism had been a result of the red stone, which had been the last act of a desperate teenage boy who didn’t want to rule the world and in trying to escape that destiny, had caused a tidal wave of horror and despair. Lex had known about Martha losing the baby, but the adult Kents had been as tight-lipped as usual about the circumstances surrounding it.

Lex paid for a hotel around ten that morning; Clark was finally showing signs of tiredness and Lex didn’t want to drive. He didn’t know how far he’d let them go if he was behind the wheel. He might just keep on North as they’d been going and refuse to stop until they hit the Canadian border, take Clark into the land of snow, moose, and politeness and try to keep Clark forever after as Lex’s.

There was no way Lex was sleeping, at least for a while again, so he let Clark take the bed and turned the television on, the sound down to the point here Lex could hear the thrum of voices, but couldn’t follow the thread of daytime soap opera drama. It was barely going on one when Clark started to get restless. Within ten minutes, he was writhing against the bed in a way that didn’t make Lex want to climb him, especially since the moaning Clark was doing sounded pained instead of pleasured.

Lex should have been more cautious about waking him, but the sound of Clark’s distress made something twist painfully in Lex’s gut and chest and he was reaching over to wake the teen before he could think twice about it. “Clark! Clark-“

Which was how Lex ended up on his back underneath Clark, Clark’s teeth pressing against Lex’s skin without actually puncturing it. The lack of puncturing might have something to do with the way Lex pressed his own blunt fingers against the scar on Clark’s chest. Clark pulled back, breathing heavily through his open mouth as his eyes went from a flared, glowing red back to a cloudy green. “Lex?”

“Clark,” Lex responded coolly. “I’m going to guess the pain is back? It’s bitey time again?”

With inhuman speed, Clark was off the bed and across the room. “Sorry. I just- I need—“

* * *

What Clark requested was a club or a bar, somewhere he could find a blood donor he wouldn’t hurt. Lex rather thought what Clark wanted was a blood donor he could sleep with. His farm boy wasn’t as innocent as he’d been the summer before. Hell, he wasn’t as innocent as he’d been a week ago, from what Lex had wheedled out of him about the clubs.

Clark thought the mark would go away or at least stop hurting if he took off the ring, but he refused that option flat out. Drinking blood helped ease or erase the pain from the mark that otherwise continued to burn in punishment. Clark had figured that out after twelve hours in the city, three (and a half, now) days ago and had spent the intervening time between then and Lex finding him keeping that pain at bay in the only way he would accept.

Except that before Lex, a single donor fed from carefully would keep the pain away for three hours at best. Clark had admittedly taken more from Lex than those careful feedings, but he had also been without pain for nearly eleven hours, which seemed a suspicious curve. Meteor rock made it powerful, and another kind of meteor rock had changed Lex, so it wasn’t hard to theorize that meteor-infected people had a stronger effect on Clark than the normal Metropolis club-goer might.

Which led Lex to the conclusion that now that his own blood had stopped affecting Clark, their road trip was probably over, because Clark was going to take someone else to bed and take their blood, and he’d do it again and again, every few hours.

Lex hoped Clark was right about being invulnerable to disease, because the idiot was suddenly going Dracula on the general populace and Stoker forbid that Clark pass on STIs at his current rate of conquest. Even Lex in his youth had slept nearly a full day between all of his binges.

Nothing was as he’d hoped it would be a week ago. He’d gotten a message from Lionel that the annulment was done, Helen sent on her way with a stern warning and a healthy fear for the wrath of Luthors. Lex had left a message at the farm that he’d found Clark and was doing his best to look out for him, so please be patient and don’t worry too much. He’d ignored all other calls and responsibilities and shut his phone off before he’d found them a popular restaurant and bar combo that served dinner before dusk.

The dinner crowd was family oriented, but there were a couple groups of friends or coworkers, people of a peer group who seemed intent on making this happy hour the happiest ever. Lex seated himself at the bar and Clark joined him for the first couple minutes while he looked over the crowd for a likely candidate.

Given Clark’s pretty face and recent trend toward fashionably tight-fitting clothes, there were very quickly a couple of options for friendly donor-company. Clark made eye contact with a few of them as he leaned against the bar chair next to Lex and let the lean of his body stand as an open invitation. Lex had worried that starting this early, when the donor wouldn’t be drunk or high or stupid on a night of dancing, would be a mistake, but Clark’s bitey powers had a kissy side effect of memory loss. It was like whatever alien magic was in the red rock had covered all the bases.

The hardest part would be getting the person alone for any length of time. That required a skill set Lex hadn’t expected of Clark. Leather and leering weren’t the only things Clark had picked up recently. His smile was flirtatious, predatory even without fangs.

Lex ordered a double scotch and kept his own gaze on the large television screen above the bar, where some baseball team was losing to another baseball team. Metropolis wasn’t playing and Lex didn’t really care, but he wasn’t up to the task of pulling his own date while Clark went and got his fix. Even if he thought he might be able to lose himself in someone else’s body, he didn’t want to be incapacitated if something went wrong with Clark. The teen might have managed three days in Metropolis without Lex, but that could have just been a fluke. Clark had bitten Lex in the middle of a crowded club; stupid acts like that were likely to only get stupider the longer Clark went between feedings.

Smallville’s willful ignorance had spoiled both of them, but Clark most of all. With his newfound knowledge of what Clark was, now and before, Lex knew it was only a matter of time before he was privy to all of Clark’s secrets, regardless of how willing Clark was or wasn’t in sharing them.

Lex silently requested a second drink as Clark got up and strode across the room. Lex didn’t look; he didn’t want to see who Clark had chosen, didn’t want to look at some woman’s pale neck and think about Clark’s mouth on her skin, his hands holding her hips in place while Clark penetrated her… with his teeth.

“This seat taken?” a man asked.

Lex shook his head before tossing back the remains of his first drink, sitting the empty tumbler on the bar top as the bartender brought the second.

“I thought at first that you and your friend were together,” the interloper murmured. There was a familiar, flirting lilt to the words that sparked Lex’s interest. He turned toward his new companion and raised an eyebrow. The other man smiled. “I’m really hoping now that I was wrong. For more than just my own selfish reasons, of course.”

Lex turned his body further so he could lean his arm on the bar and open his body in an inviting way. “Why don’t you tell me about your selfish reasons while I buy you a drink,” Lex requested, signaling to the bartender again. It would take a moment, as the one tender on staff was putting out a line of shots for one of the happy hour groups. Lex could handle some harmless flirting before he let the stranger down easy. He was easy on the eyes, his blond hair carefully styled, his blue eyes smiling at Lex’s invitation. His suit screamed middle management, his hands were calloused from pens and stained with ink from the same. He had confidence, but wasn’t overbearing in the way that indicated he’d been born with both looks and money.

“Tim,” the stranger said, offering his hand.

Lex accepted the handshake, kept it firm and smiled wider when Tim’s answering grip was strong and sure. “Lex.”

“Lex,” Clark interrupted, appearing so quickly at Lex’s side that Lex winced first at the thought of Clark revealing himself before he’d processed the fact that Clark was there. “We need to go.”

Lex looked in the direction where Clark had headed earlier and found a table of three young woman staring in their direction with confusion and disappointment in equal measures. When Lex looked back at Tim, he found only the disappointment. Lex’s head kept turning, and he smiled at the bartender who had finally answered his earlier call. “Let me cover Tim’s tab and anyone else who joins him tonight,” Lex requested, passing over a couple of bills he kept folded. To Tim, he smiled. “Sorry.”

“No harm, no foul,” Tim murmured, eyeing the money Lex had passed over the bar, then looking at Lex. He never looked at Clark. “Not a bad opening gambit, though.”

“Not bad at all,” Lex agreed, standing up and forcing Clark to step back. “Better luck.”

“You might need it more than I do,” Tim returned, winking at Lex before turning to the bar.

Lex waved at Clark to precede him, then followed Clark’s quick steps out of the bar and onto the street. There were people lined up for tables and Lex shook his head when Clark started to speak. “Let’s get the car,” Lex requested. He wasn’t going to try to guess at what the problem was, but he’d processed Clark’s distress and he’d get them as far from the bar before they had to talk about what had chased them out of it.

They’d barely reached the car, thankfully parked amidst empty cars and far from an audience, when Clark gasped and clutched at his shirt. Lex pushed against his side and opened the door before helping Clark slide inside. Lex shut the door quickly, but could still hear Clark’s cry of pain. Through the window, he could see Clark pulling his shirt, revealing the mark of El. It was impossible to miss, with the way the thing glowed in the dark interior. Lex had been curious after Clark had described it, but he would have rather never seen it for himself in such circumstances.

* * *

Lex found a call service and ordered two girls. Then he called them back and cancelled, because despite his pain and the fact that he’d opted not to pick up a woman the normal way, Clark looked scandalized by the idea of hiring a call girl to get bitey with.

Clark crawled miserably back into the bed he’d abandoned and Lex leaned over to unlace Clark’s boots and pull them off, despite Clark’s grumbled protest. “Talk, farm boy. What happened with the girls?”

Instead of answering, Clark rolled over onto his back and glared at Lex. “Who was the guy?”

“Guy?” Lex repeated. He dropped Clark’s bare foot to the mattress and straightened up. “If you wanted him, you should have stayed and flirted, I don’t think he would have minded.”

“You were flirting with him,” Clark accused.

Lex stared at him blankly. “Yes. I would have had your back, Clark, I wasn’t going to let it go far.”

Clark opened his mouth, closed it with a sigh, then opened it again, his expression indignant the entire time. Lex turned and left him there while he went into the bathroom. He was apparently going crazy, potentially a delayed effect of the blood loss, because he was pretty certain Clark was jealous. Of Middle-Management Tim.

After drying his hands, Lex returned to the bedroom to find Clark sitting at the foot of the bed with his head in his hands, elbows resting on his knees. Lex’s self-preservation instincts had always been weak when it came to Clark, but that was no explanation for why Lex found himself walking to Clark to kneel in front of him. Clark looked up, but Lex pulled him closer without a word, forestalling the need to explain by tipping his head to the side and pulling Clark’s mouth against his neck.

He expected either an immediate bite or an equally immediate rejection, but Clark’s arms came up to hold Lex close and his breath ghosted over Lex’s skin. “It hurt you. I hurt you.”

“I’m not the one who’s hurting,” Lex reminded him. The sting from his neck had been fading all day. The marks were still there, visible in the bathroom mirror just a minute ago, but Lex had felt little pain from pressing his fingers against them as he’d washed over his neck. Despite the open invitation, there was still no biting. Lex sighed and pulled back, or tried to. Clark’s arms held him tight. “Clark, let me go.”

The teen did, his arms dropping as he threw himself backwards with a noise Lex recognized as frustration. Clark had made that noise many times before, because of school, his parents, Lana, and even because of Lex. Lex sat back on his heels to unbutton his shirt, then reached for the buttons of Clark’s. “Lex?” Clark whispered his name, the sound buried beneath a wealth of emotions Lex refused to dig through.

When their shirts were gone, Lex undid the front of his pants. He nodded toward Clark’s zipper and smiled when the teen reached shaky hands to open the front of his jeans. It was enough for Lex, to know that Clark was reading and following his cues. For today and tonight, they were Clark and Lex, the stuff of legends. A team. He pushed up from the floor to crawl over Clark’s legs and to kneel straddling him. With deliberate intent, Lex leaned down over him, elbows to the bedspread as he bracketed Clark’s head with his arms and leaned down to present his neck again.

Clark shuddered beneath him and opened his mouth, lips brushing over Lex’s neck in a gentle tease, or perhaps a warning. Lex dropped his hips and ground against Clark’s. Clark’s teeth pierced his neck and Lex curled his arms around Clark tighter and held on as Clark’s hands caught Lex’s hips and held them in place while he thrust up. For all that Lex had started this, Clark was quick to take control of it.

Despite the current situation and his past, Lex wasn’t a masochist. He curled his fingers in Clark’s hair and held tight to images and thoughts of Clark as the bite became a less painful sucking and their hips continued to press together. It wasn’t difficult to stay hard, not with thoughts of Clark in his leather jacket, Clark in his stupidly adorable plaid, Clark with his smile and his eyes and his large hands holding Lex exactly where he wanted him.

Clark’s jaw relinquished its hold and he gasped wetly against the bleeding marks. “God, Lex.”

“Was it enough?” he asked, voice breathless even though this was the most passive he’d probably been in sex.

“No,” Clark growled. They shifted suddenly, the world spinning as Clark flipped them over so he was on top. There was a fraction of a second where they held still, Clark’s weight propped up on his arms and one knee. Their eyes met and Clark, shockingly, looked uncertain. “May I?” he asked, tipping his chin down.

Lex wanted to laugh, because leave it to Clark to be so ridiculous when it should have been obvious that all of Lex was his for the taking. “Kiss me, first, farm boy.”

Clark smiled in response. It should have looked something other than charming and sweet, given the blood on his lips and teeth, but Lex was going to be forever enamored of Clark, it seemed. “As you wish.”

Kissing became more important than the press of their hips, because Clark’s hands were cradling Lex’s head, fingers curled so carefully over his skin even while his lips and teeth and tongue ravished Lex’s mouth. Lex didn’t care as much about getting off as he did about keeping Clark in his arms for as long as he could keep him there.

His million questions could wait, as could Smallville and all their parents. He didn’t fully know what he was getting into, but he’d gotten what he’d wanted and he’d deal with the rest later. His first goal had been to find Clark, which he’d done. Step two, getting Clark home, could wait another day, along with all the waiting questions and the rest of the world waiting for them.

End

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End file.
